Pedestal
by the queen of slurking
Summary: One-shot. Emily has always placed Alison on a pedestal. Rated T just in case.


**A few things: I do not own Pretty Little Liars. Sara Shepard does.**

**I wrote this before reading Wanted. May contain spoilers if you haven't read Killer, in which case you may like to read this after you've read Killer-just so everything makes sense.**

**Hope you like it.**

_Pedestal_

Pictures of the girl with the sapphire eyes and gleaming, beautifully maintained hair decorate your cell phone and nightstand. You never give up hope that one day, she returns, smiling that inimitable smile and as gorgeous as ever. In this way, you're stuck in time. Even when all your other friends have tossed out old mementoes and put away the photos, you never have. She is immortalized on your nightstand, the key component of a shrine to the girl who was possibly the most important part of your world. You even keep an old pair of jeans she lent you all those years ago, purely because she gave them to you. It doesn't matter that they no longer fit you, but it does matter that they came from her-it's yet another piece of memorabilia that you have of her. Despite the years since you last saw her, you stay faithful to her memory, convinced that she is still alive somewhere. Or if not, she's in a completely decadent heaven where her afterlife mirrors her life on Earth. She is surrounded by guys who want her and girls who want to be her, and has everything she ever wanted. Her heaven, you think, is different to any other person's heaven: for her, it's blissful and completely perfect, just as she was completely perfect.

You cling to what doctors and your friends say was a mirage. You can't stand the idea that seeing her was just a hallucination, something you saw as the woods were being eaten by a wall of flame, as a result of inhaling too much smoke and not getting enough oxygen to the brain. You're convinced of what you saw. Even though no-one believes you, and even though you and your friends now have a nickname that labels you all in Rosewood. You stubbornly cling to your belief that she is alive and that the body in the hole was that of another girl entirely.

You admit to putting her on a pedestal, because in your mind she deserves to be. She is the golden girl, unreachable, untouchable, the one who never suffers any sorrows or knew any pain. She is like Dionysus among the Thebans. You wish desperately that she were still here. If she were, you'd give her everything you could. For her, you'd do anything.

They say you always remember your first love. Which would explain why you remember her so well. That, or the way you memorized her face, every detail, and the way you love even the most banal things that few others would notice. You like to think that of all her old best friends, you knew her best-because you kissed her that time, and perhaps because of the fact that when it was just the two of you, things were always really different than when it was all five of you together. You hope that your A notes may be from her: for all anyone knows, they are. She has your complete devotion, even through the purging session the grief counsellor made you do, being sent to Amish country and all the events that have happened over the past three years, and even the most recent events of just a few months ago.

You are Emily Fields, and you hold Alison DiLaurentis on such a high pedestal, some perceive your devotion to her as obsession. They're probably right.

But even the highest-up gods or goddesses can fall from grace, or simply fall altogether. The problem is, you don't think they will. Which makes it all the more devastating when they do. You believe that Alison will never fall from grace, that she is only ever the beautiful victim of a horrible crime. This then means that when you finally come face-to-face with reality, it will be completely unexpected and totally shocking.

Maybe one day, your devotion will cease to burn and fade away. But until that day, you continue to worship Alison as if she were a goddess.

Because to you, she is, and so deserves nothing less than total worship and devotion.

**A couple of other things: In the fourth paragraph is an allusion to the letter Emily receives back from A. That would be the love letter Emily wrote to Alison that A returned to her with 'Thought you might want this back. Love, A' written on it. I'm not sure which book. Either Pretty Little Liars or Flawless.**

**Dionysus among the Thebans is an allusion to Euripides' play **_**The Bacchae**_**, in which the Greek god Dionysus visits the town Thebes disguised as a mortal and causes havoc.**

**Apologies to those of you who read my other fanfic, Could Hanna, Spencer, Emily and Aria have saved Ali? for not updating in so long. I recently read Wanted and have hit a bit of a stumbling block, as I don't want to make it too similar to Sara Shepard's series. I'll do my best to update soon though. Also, I may be changing the name of it to something a bit shorter.**

**Please review-any feedback is welcome and I'd really appreciate it if you tell me what you'd like to see happen in my other fanfic (the one I mentioned above). Who do you think A should be? Do you want to see any character killed off? Or maybe you could suggest a new title? All feedback welcome (but please be gentle, even if you think it sucks) and I promise full credit to anyone whose idea/s I use.**


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